The word exhaustion means oh-so-much-more to me this year. I thought since we were equally numbered 2 kids: 2 adults, that our ratio of 1:1 would save us. Who was I kidding!! The other night we ALL went to be at 7:15pm and didn’t wake up until the morning. Oh yea. We are T-I-R-E-D! But life is fabulous.

There is nothing like laying on the living floor at night with just the Christmas tree lights on with a toddler wiggling about and a baby snoring in someone’s arms. The Chicklet is loving the “scavenger hunt” for ornaments that she and her Baba playing while they lie there. He asks her to find an ornament, she finds it. And then she challenges him to find the one she is looking at too. It’s quite cute. And very calming. Thank goodness, too, as life is everyone-on-the-run from before sunup until the typical 8:00PM bedtime.

Elfie visits. Photo by Kate Chan

Now that there are presents under the tree, our poor little Chica is tempted beyond all reason to open boxes. (And it doesn’t help that some of the gifts have come wrapped in Buzz Lightyear paper. She is a Buzz/Woody SUPER fan!) So, I got a little creative. You see, I know this elf (ahem) who has come to live with us until Christmas. He is a buddy of Santa’s. And he is just like a Toy Story toy in so much that he is inanimate during the day, but when we aren’t looking, he can scoot off and get messages to Santa. Even better, he is stationed by the gifts to remind the Chica that she is not to open them *just yet*. Since Elfie’s arrival, Z has taken to laying at his feet and contemplating life upon occasion and when she is most tempted to open gifts. Poor little thing. The next five days are going to be hard on her!

Despite the fact that I have TWO HUGE bags of papers to grade, lessons to write, laundry, dusting, wrapping, etc hanging overhead, I am here. I would rather be cooking, writing or playing with the kidlets than doing any of the aforementioned fabulous household and work duties. And since there are several other pressing things to be done, I’m off testing pizza crust recipes.

And as I was mixing and chatting with my Love, I remember the King Arthur Flour company and I wanted to order some goodies for a friend. Little did I know, however, that King Arthur had recently entered in the gluten-free mix line. (In fact, just the day after discovering this, I found their mixes at a local market. But they are SPENDY! ($12/box of muffin mix? YIKES!) And as most of you know, I really do prefer to make my own. It is so much cheaper.

Since I found their GF items, I began to read a little more. They have plenty of recipes on their site that use a basic mix that they prepare. Their GF Flour Mix is: 6 cups brown rice flour, 3 cup potato starch (not flour) and 1 cup tapioca flour. They “stabilize” their brown rice flour so their mix is definitely spendier, but maybe that works for someone who needs the basic mix to last longer than I do. Anyway, since they had their mix posted and a pizza crust recipe, I thought I would try it. (PS. I have NO affiliation with King Arthur, have received no goods/monies, etc to post this and YES, I have their permission to post this recipe and links.)

This pizza crust is tasty. Very tasty. The texture is great – the crunchy bottom of the crust mimics pizza-joint crusts and that is something we’ve missed. (Thus the cast iron pizza recipe.) But this crust has depth to it as well – and it is easy to adapt/add different flavors, etc if you wish. There are, however, a few things you should not mess with. They are as follows:

You really do need to grease your pan well before baking.

You really do need the extra olive oil on the pan before flattening out your crust. That is what made the crust texture sooooo much better! You could bake it on parchment with olive oil (we’ve done that too), but directly on the pan makes for a better crunch and texture.

Beyond that, we did away with the wait time for the sponge. (I’m impatient like that.) In order to get the yeast to rise, we added the sugar to the yeast mixture and not to the flour mix. Other than those changes, we followed their recipe more closely but not exactly. After all, recipes are like guideposts sometimes – you just gotta do your own thing. Although I always recommend following the recipe the first time through and THEN making changes on subsequent batches. You will know what you are working with better.

Sift together remaining dry ingredients: GF flour mix, powdered milk, baking powder, salt, xanthan gum and your seasonings of choice. (We use granulated garlic, fennel and dried basil. Sometimes cumin, garlic and sesame if we are making a non-traditional pizza too.And then we use some sesame oil at the end too.)

Bring water to 110º-115ºF. Add 2 Tablespoons olive oil, the sugar and yeast. Add 1/4 cup of the dry ingredients to your proofing yeast. Stir together and set aside.

Add the remaining dry ingredients to your mixing bowl. (You need a stand mixer or a hand mixer for this pizza crust to mix it well.)

Wait about 5-10 minutes or until your yeast mixture has risen nicely.

Add the wet to the dry and mix together on medium speed for 4-6 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 425ºF.

Generously grease your pizza pan. Then drizzle 2 Tablespoons+ of olive oil into the center of the pan.

Scrap the pizza dough onto the olive oil pool on the pan. With wet hands, squish the dough out evenly onto the surface of the pizza pan.

Bake the crust for 8 – 10 minutes or until the top is no longer shiny but opaque.

Top with your favorite pizza toppings. (The Chicklet loves mushrooms and black olives on her pizza. What do you like?)

Return to the oven and bake another 10-15 minutes until your toppings are done/cheese is melted.

Enjoy!After all, it might be the Holiday season…. but sometimes you just have to eat comfort food too!Happy GF Eating!~Kate

16 comments on “Gluten Free Pizza – Oh, so good!”

KATE, GET SOME REST, I KNOW I AM POOPED TOO, TO MUCH TO DO TO GET READY FOR THE HOLIDAYS, I HAVE A EMERALD YOU KNOW THE CHEF GLUTEN FREE PIZZA RECEIPE I LOVE YOU CAN GOOGLE IT, I ALSO WILL TRY YOURS AS ALL OF YOUR RECEIPES I PRINT AND ADORA ! HAVE A BLESSED HOLIDAY !

So glad you found our GF recipes and mixes – and that they’re available in your local market! Thanks for sharing. I’d be happy to send a couple of the mixes for you to test, if you’re interested – just send me an email. The cost is a little higher than some other mixes on the market, but the taste and texture are truly delicious, and unlike others the baked goods can keep for a couple of days and still be great. I prefer scratch baking, myself, but I still keep a couple of really good mixes on hand for emergencies!

Abbi –
Xanthan gum is a binder that helps pull the dough together as a substitute for the gluten. Some people do not like it – and too much of it can make your foods “gummy” in quality. Since it does not have a natural gluten-like ability to bind, it is important to beat the doughs for the time stated in recipes in order to help develop this.
-Hope that helps!
Kate

My husband finally decided to take his wheat/gluten allergy seriously (we’ve known about it for 4 years). He is an extremely picky eater. I used this recipe tonight for our first gluten free pizza (our second gluten free meal) and we were both very impressed. It was delicious. Thank you for posting.

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